Apex Legends season 23 patch notes – Gibraltar, Newcastle buffs and more

There's a lot packed into season 23's patch notes. Here's what you need to know.

Lifeline runs with a rocket launcher in her hands and a giant purple rift exploding in the sky behind her,
Image via Respawn

Apex Legends is taking it back to where it all started in season 23 with the Launch Royale mode—but that hasn’t stopped the developers at Respawn Entertainment from also shipping a hefty balance patch to fundamentally switch the game up again.

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The Lifeline rework will grab most headlines heading into the season, but there are also impactful changes for all support characters, huge buffs to characters like Gibraltar and Newcastle, and weapon changes that are going to switch up the battle royale in a big way.

If you can’t wait to see all the new changes, or you just want to jump back into day one Kings Canyon, here are all the patch notes for Apex season 23, From the Rift.

Apex season 23 patch notes: All changes in From the Rift update

Legend changes

Lifeline rework

Apex Legend Lifeline smiling at the camera
Smile if you just got buffed. Image via Respawn Entertainment

Obviously, Lifeline headlines the character changes with some sweeping changes to her abilities, making her much more of an active healer and even giving her a shield to place around her team. D.O.C. retains all of its abilities and gains some new ones, but Lifeline’s care package ultimate is no more.

  • Combat Glide (passive): Holding jump in mid-air will cause Lifeline to glide with her D.O.C. drone. The drone still revives allies independently.
  • D.O.C. Heal Drone (tactical): D.O.C. can now be assigned to a teammate and follow them while healing.
  • D.O.C. Halo (ultimate): D.O.C. deploys a circular shield around your team in which allies use health consumables faster.

The changes will make Lifeline an even more active participant in fights and not just a back-liner reacting to teammates going down, and the new tactical should make the ability more useful mid-fight akin to Conduit’s tactical, and not just a tool for resetting.

Conduit

  • Buff: Savior’s Speed passive now activates when moving towards ally death boxes and respawn beacons when carrying a banner.
  • Buff: Savior’s Speed will not have a range limit when moving towards a downed ally.

Crypto

  • Nerf: Drone now takes ring damage. It can survive 10 ticks of ring damage before being destroyed.
  • Nerf: Off the Grid upgrade now emits occasional flickers, meaning Crypto will no longer be completely invisible at all times when using drone.

Gibraltar

Gibraltar might be the biggest winner of this patch, even outside of Lifeline, with massive buffs to his kit.

  • Buff: Dome of Protection tactical cooldown reduced to 17 seconds (was 30).
  • Buff: Dome of Protection no longer destroyed by Crypto EMP or Maggie Wrecking Ball.
  • Buff: New level two Evo upgrades include Big Bruddah (increasing bubble size 20 percent) and Fast Shotties (increasing movement speed when using shotguns and auto-reloading them on knocks).

Horizon

  • Buff: New Battpack level two Evo upgrade lets Horizon have one extra battery per stack.

Mirage

  • Buff: Ultimate no longer shows health bar over the real Mirage to enemies when they deal damage.
  • Change: Miracle Worker upgrade removed, Battpack upgrade added.

Newcastle

This is definitely the patch of the supports, as Newcastle is right up there with Gibraltar as one of the biggest winners of this update.

  • Buff: Mobile Shield tactical no longer takes damage.
  • Buff: Mobile Shield can be repositioned when Newcastle is knocked.
  • Buff: Retrieve the Wounded passive shield HP buffed by 50 percent.
  • Buff: Hero’s Hustle level two Evo upgrade gives Newcastle increased move speed while reviving.
  • Buff: Miracle Worker upgrade replaced with Ultimate Savior (allies in impact range of Castle Wall gain shield regeneration for 15 seconds).

Revenant

  • Change: Forged Shadows ultimate now regens 50 HP instead of instantly refreshing on three second delay.

Wattson

  • Change: Fresh Start level two Evo upgrade replaced by Revive Expert (revive allies faster and with health regen).

Support class change

Gibraltar performs a Maori Haka in one of his default emotes.
Support class gets some impressive buffs across the board. Image via Respawn

Like the Lifeline rework and buffs to Gibraltar and Newcastle weren’t enough, the entire Support class is getting sizable perk changes. Their ability to craft ally banners has been given to all legends, so to compensate for that power shift, support legends can now move at full speed while using healing items, they revive allies faster and with health regen automatically, and will automatically spawn a mobile respawn beacon when crafting a banner.

Weapon and hop-up changes

Boosted Loader

  • Buff: Activates at 0 ammo.

Gun Shield Generator

  • Buff: Shield recharge cooldown reduced from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Nerf: Spawn rate decreased.

Hammerpoints

  • Nerf: Spawn rate decreased.

L-STAR

  • Buff: Damage increased from 17 to 18 per bullet.
  • Buff: Gold extended energy magazines now give the L-STAR a longer shooting time before overheating.

Longbow

  • Buff: Damage increased from 55 to 60 per bullet.

P2020

  • Buff: Akimbo hipfire spread improved.

Peacekeeper

  • Buff: Choke speed increased.

Rampage

  • Overall buff: Revved-up Rampage now has an increased decay rate, but at reduced charge per cost, more energized capacity, and charging the weapon now automatically reloads it.

Sentinel

  • Buff: Receives Boosted Loader hop-up.
  • Buff: Charging Sentinel with Boosted Loader attached will overload the next mag.
  • Buff: Increased energized capacity, total time energized, and charging up Sentinel auto-reloads it.

Spitfire

  • Buff: Damage increased from 18 to 19 per bullet.

Triple Take

  • Buff: Choke speed increased.
  • Buff: Fire rate increased.

Care package rotation and Rift Relics

Rift Relics spawn loot ticks that will give players some special weapons, like Titanfall‘s EPG-1 rocket launcher, as well as a new survival item, the Boost Kit.

For the care package, the Devotion returns to ground loot, while the HAVOC rifle now enters the care package complete with the old Selectfire single-shot mode and other buffs.

Launch Royale mode

A series of buildings stand in a swamp.
Taking it back. Image via Respawn Entertainment

Launch Royale is the closest Apex players are going to get to the day one experience. Players can drop into the original Kings Canyon map with weapons in their original ammo type and stats, alongside legends tuned to their day one abilities. This also means certain items make a triumphant return, like Gold knockdown shields with self-revive and Gold backpacks getting their fast-healing ability back.

There are also changes to other modes and plenty of other bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. Players can check out the nitty gritty details in Respawn’s full patch notes.

Author
Image of Adam Snavely
Adam Snavely
Associate Editor and Apex Legends Lead. From getting into fights over Madden and FIFA with his brothers to interviewing some of the best esports figures in the world, Adam has always been drawn to games with a competitive nature. You'll usually find him on Apex Legends (World's Edge is the best map, no he's not arguing with you about it), but he also dabbles in VALORANT, Super Smash Bros. Melee, CS:GO, Pokemon, and more. Ping an R-301.
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